“This is not the first time libertarians have disagreed with one another.”
If you donate $100 per year to the Mises Institute (MI), cut it back to $99. If you contribute $1,000, reduce it to $990. If $100,000, then make it $99,000. Why should you reduce your support for this libertarian organization by 1%? Because they have mistreated me, a long-time member of the MI community. This would be a good protest against their unjust actions. They have taken away my Senior Fellow status. I have written, oh, maybe 100 or more articles on LewRockwell.com (LRC), and these have all disappeared. I tried to access them, to no avail. I asked Lew to send them to me. No response.
Why this harshness? It is due to the fact that I have supported Israel vis-à-vis Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthies, Iran, etc., and the MI takes the opposite position. This is not the first time libertarians have disagreed with one another. Murray Rothbard was pro-choice. Former Congressman Ron Paul was pro-life. They could not both be correctly deducing these positions from libertarian principles, since these two libertarian leaders contradict one another. Yet, neither has ever come within a million miles of being cancelled, as I have been, and abortion is at least as important an issue as is the one concerning Israel and its enemies. In addition, leading libertarians also sharply disagree on immigration, voluntary slavery, reparations for slavery, and many other issues. Never have any cancellations arisen over these other important matters.
Why, then, should one continue support for the MI at the 99% level? It is because even considering this grievous error of theirs, they (I am saddened by the fact that I must use this word, instead of “we”) are still by far the best institution which carries the banner for libertarianism, Austrian economics, and human prosperity.
How do I account for their untoward reactions to my support for Israel? Is it due to anti-Semitism? It is exceedingly difficult to make this case. I have been associated with this organization since its very inception in 1982, and never a whiff of anti-Semitism did I ever experience, and my “Jewdar” is as good, I claim, as any other member of the Chosen People. Moreover, Ludwig von Mises and Rothbard, the two leading lights of the MI, were both Jewish.
How then can I account for this astounding state of affairs? I really do not know. I can only guess. One surmise it that there is indeed some anti-Semitism present, but it is deeply hidden, deeply embedded, actually subconscious, or unconscious. It only arises when Israel is concerned. I do not believe this for a moment, though. I only mention it to be exhaustive, to inspire others to cogitate on this matter, so as to help me understand this weird phenomenon.
Another possibility is based on the fact that both Hans-Hermann Hoppe and I have often been named as the main followers of (or successors to) the mentor, friend, and teacher of the both of us, Rothbard. This entire episode of me being outed from the Mises Institute started with this open letter to me explaining why he was “breaking up” with me based on my support for Israel in its war on Hamas. I then co-authored this rejoinder countering his objections to my position on the war in Gaza.
Perhaps he wrote this since he no longer wished to share the spotlight with me of being thought of as one of two main disciples of Rothbard.
I do not much believe in this hypothesis either. This spotlight sharing had gone on for years. Why, only, on the basis of Israel vis-à-vis Hamas would he try to stick this verbal knife in my back? It is not as if we had not disagreed on many other issues (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, for just a few examples).
So, I reject this hypothesis also. I am at my wit’s end trying to understand this phenomenon. If any readers have any ideas, please share them with me. I have been friends with Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Tom DiLorenzo, Lew Rockwell, and others who will no longer associate with me in any manner shape or form. I really wish to better understand, or understand at all, what is going on.
Walter Block, an Austrian school economist and anarcho-libertarian philosopher, is Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Chair in Economics and Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans. He was formerly a Senior Fellow at Mises Institute.
